A Comparative Study Of Public Speaking In Intercultural Context

With the rapid process of globalization, intercultural communication has become not only necessary but also inevitable. The capability of communicating effectively in intercultural context is something indispensable for the ordinary people in modern society. The studies on the public speaking delivered by ordinary people are relatively scarce whereas most studies concentrate on the public speeches delivered by national (or political) leaders, such as Bill Clinton, Churchill, etc.. The thesis is aimed to explore how ordinary speakers express their ideas effectively, realize interaction, and convey their ideas coherently through the choice of words and grammatical structures in intercultural context, hoping that the research will be a tentative supplement to the study of public speaking and it can offer insights into improving intercultural communicative competence.The thesis, theoretically based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics, takes two speeches in intercultural context (Bai Yansong's speech at Yale and Joe Wong's speech at the 66th Annual Radio and TV Correspondents'Dinner) as the samples to analyze the distinctive stylistic features of this type of speech from the perspective of register, structural organization of the speeches as well as three metafunctions. The scope of analysis covers field, tenor, mode, introduction, body, conclusion, transitivity system, speech function, mood, modality and nonverbal language, thematic structure, cohesive devices and rhetoric devices. The thesis applies the quantitative, comparative, and descriptive methods. The data are quantified and compared, and then the results are described and analyzed with abundant examples.The result of the study shows that both speakers take advantage of their own life experience to convey ideas in the speech and achieve the recognition of the audience. The material process and the relational process are the relatively ideal choices in public speaking in intercultural context. Besides, mental process is often employed to express the speakers'hopes, wishes, and ideas. The most commonly seen grammatical structure is the declarative sentences in both speeches, showing objectivity. Both speakers employ a large number of first personal pronouns―I‖and―we‖to express their feelings and opinions, or establish a closer relationship between the speaker and the listeners. Both speakers prefer to use modal verbal operators with low value and medium value, such as―can‖―would‖, to create a friendly atmosphere, so as to narrow the distance between speakers and the audience while they avoid using operators with high value like―must‖. Two speakers employ some kind of nonverbal language to clarify their ideas, including smile, facial expression, and hand gestures. To deliver their speeches coherently, both speakers attach great importance to the textual meta-function of two speeches. It is revealed that in both speeches, unmarked, simple and multiple themes occupy a larger proportion compared with marked, clausal theme. Besides, cohesive devices, especially reference and conjunction, are also employed to make the speech cohesively and logically. Additionally, some rhetoric devices are employed too, including parallelism, simile and metaphor, repetition and pun.